Introduction
Events are often taken as the most difficult task to pull off. Alongside it, there are lots of problems to deal when one has a target to be completed.
Thanks to human errors and other factors like fruitless execution of particular task, there always have been small mistakes here and there.
Most of the people think just about the day of event than those days which come before. This led towards a fairly planned event.
To minimize such problems, people have started to take the route of developing website. Which ultimately helps in the overall quality of the event.
With a full-feature packed website, you can expect features like countdown timer, maps, venue information, guest lineup, performance lineup, testimonials, event itineraries, gallery, contact list, registration form, etc depending upon your need.
Carrying all these features in a website might be time consuming and cannot be done with a basic sense of usability. You might have to hire a group to make your visionary website a reality. To minimize the cost and responsibility that come in the way of making such website, we can opt-in to WordPress. WordPress solves all these problems with its incredible one click database feature.
Your event might be different than the way themes are presented in a website, but features carrying alongside that theme like plugins, tools, etc are similar or can be taken from third parties.
Some of the features which cannot be neglected in an event website are Countdown timer, gallery, venue direction, price list, contact details, etc. These features are briefly explained on the basis of its importance below.
Event manager plugins for wordpress websites
Countdown Timer
Your website represents your event, but people will be visiting your website before the event. So for making them interactive towards event. It is visually pleasing and moreover very intuitive towards your clients. Basically, it is an independent plugin which displays specific countdown timer discarding the type of it. So that means we can put countdown of anything.
As an event planner, you would wish to have a good and appealing design for your upcoming event. And countdown timer isn’t any exception for making your design standout.
There are many uses of a countdown timer for your event. Some of them are:
- For teasing your website and event itself by displaying the remaining date and time.
- Showing up numbers is a great way to make your audience hyped up. This creates a sense of interest among the audience and helps your participants involve more on to it.
- If you are building organic audience/participations for your event, then such countdown feature can be a great way to engage them through social sharing.
- From a marketing standpoint, after engaging audience, you can even generate more like minded participants through it. And in our opinion, that’s a great way to have participants/audience who actually cares.
- It can also be used in ‘maintenance mode’ of your site.
Some of the plugins might be better than another. Some are value for money, whereas some give only necessary features for a cheap or free price. Taking these into consideration, here are some of the plugins we recommend:
Gallery
For someone attending your event, he/she asks about the overall experience which will be happening there. This includes venue and its feasibility too. So, for someone looking up for their venue one asks about how it reflects the event. You might have chosen the best one, but you have to present it among them. And what’s the best way than pictures?
Gallery comes with features like lightbox, where you can include captions, buttons and make it more interactive. WordPress itself has a gallery feature. But it’s not that much of a useful according to our usage.
Some of such Gallery plugins are there with almost more or less the same sort of features. We can use this for:
- Showcasing the best side of your event so that you won’t be questioned often about the type of venue.
- presenting certain features with graphics with inclusive to slider, widgets, etc.
- making video collage to showcase highlights through videos.
- interactive designs on frontend using grid, masonry, carousel, Polaroid.
Galleries are differently made from each other with different creative knowledge and creation. You might want to use different than another. We have chosen some of the best we could find for you:
Venue Direction
If you want to reach somewhere you haven’t been to. Then you might need a direction advice till the finish point. Considering this as one of the issues while inviting guests/participants for your event, you might need something to solve this problem. And that is Maps integration.
Venue direction is needed for all sorts of events because either its hotel or even your house, not all people would know location.
Plugins have made this more easy. You can actually integrate any of the maps and help your participants reach venue without any hassle. This results in a decrease in phone calls, emails and other forms of contact related to venue direction.
These plugins are especially used in footer widget, post or even in sidebar widgets.
Such plugin helps in different ways. Some of them are:
- presentation of venue which gives brief information on scale of event
- clients can use it to get live directions to the venue which is efficient for cross country travelers
- enables the usage of any kind of map of choice which ultimately increases the overall experience of user
In this competitive market, you might want the best out of the best. So here are some of the plugins we recommend:
Price List
If you are selling any products or providing any services through your WordPress site, then pricing table plugins can really come in handy. Though some premium WordPress themes come with pricing tables as a built-in feature, some themes require an external plugin to get the feature.
Pricing tables are effective in showing product features for different packages side by side so users can make a decision on which package to go for.
Pricing tables have different types of usability. Some of them are:
- you can insert the table in any page or post with the provided shortcode without any hassle which defines its ease to use features
- since there are unlimited themes or even options to edit your table which is essential for UI that ultimately reflects user experience
- you are selling tickets and other goodies along with it, so such plugins helps on declaring ‘sold out’ on top of that table content. This decreases the hassle of updating people that your stuffs are sold out
These plugins come free with the themes. But if due to some reasons, it isn’t on yours, here are some editors which include such plugins:
Contact Details
Contact forms are something used in every wordpress website. It can be used as to create subscription forms, surveys, or anything else that can be done through a web form. But for us, it is simply a contact form. If went further, we can use this as registration method.
Your clients might find it as a need to contact you. On the other side, you may need to contact your participants and clients. This is to maintain a sense of contact between two parties.
We cannot rely on all the information we give out. People may feel hassles and several problems.
To reduce these, we can give out our social media details. But the more efficient way is to add a form page onto our website.
Before choosing a plugin, you might want to learn some uses:
- contact forms can be used as a method to take feedback
- contact form itself can be modified as registration fill up, survey and other beneficial types
- these forms have options for collecting any type of data which helps it to become more versatile
Contact details can be collected through any type of form. Some of the leading ones in the industry are:
Conclusion
For any theme which is responsible for delivering a complete package of event website, it should be inclusive to most of its core features. Although every theme contains all basic features through its plugins, you might want to switch to another for being cheap or probably free. Hope you have determined your type of plugin with respect to your need.
FAQ
How to install a theme?
It is a very easy task to install a theme. Just search it through the dashboard’s themes section. Then click on ‘install’. You might see ‘select’ option after installation is complete. Click that button. You have now successfully installed a theme.
How to install a plugin?
After installing a theme, you might get a popup asking to ‘begin installing plugin’. You can simply click that to install those plugins which come with theme.
For 3rd party theme, go to the plugins tab on dashboard. Search your design plugin after going to ‘Add new’. Click on install. After that, you will see option to ‘Activate’ it. Click it to activate it.
How to filter out spam from website?
There are several spam detection and blocking plugins. One of them is ‘Akismet’. It comes pre installed with a stock theme. It is effective to remove spam from your wordpress website. Besides that, you can use reCaptcha too.
